


Every Thousand Years (the flames and ashes remix)

by wizefics (bewize)



Category: X-Men Movieverse
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-15
Updated: 2010-05-15
Packaged: 2017-10-09 11:27:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/86807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bewize/pseuds/wizefics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce." ~ Karl Marx</p>
            </blockquote>





	Every Thousand Years (the flames and ashes remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tartanshell](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tartanshell/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Olive Branches](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/739) by Tartanshell. 



> Thanks to both of my betas for their help!

_Scott, I can't keep having this argument with you!_ Jean glared at her boyfriend from across the room, hands making swift work of folding a basket of laundry.

"We haven't actually had this argument, Jean," Scott answered, his voice clipped. "Every time I try and bring it up, you refuse to talk about it."

_Then read between the lines, damn it. I **don't** want to talk about it._

"That's too bad," Scott snapped and Jean looked up at him in surprise. She could count on one hand the number of times he'd lost his temper enough to actually raise his voice at her.

"Don't shout at me," Jean ordered, balling up the forgotten sweater in her hands as she straightened up. _It's rude._

_So is pushing your thoughts in my head, instead of having the decency to actually speak to me._ Scott threw the thought at her like a weapon and Jean hurled the crumpled sweater onto the bed. Behind her, the blinds opened of their own accord and she took a deep breath, trying to calm herself.

"I'm going out."

"Where are you going?" Scott demanded, coming around the bed to stand near the door, though he didn't quite dare block it. Jean's eyes narrowed as she quickly shoved her feet into the pair of discarded flats she'd been wearing earlier.

"To get a drink."

Worry replaced anger in his mind in an instant. "Do you think that's a good idea?"

Jean almost laughed, a mixture of irritation and exasperation. "Yes." Grabbing her purse and keys from the chair near the dresser, she opened the door with her TK. "Don't wait up."

"Jean."

"Just… don't, Scott." Jean stopped, but she didn't look back. "Just don't." She made it down the stairs without any interruption. Turning, she went through the kitchen intending to go into to the garage, but she stopped when she saw the Professor sitting at the kitchen table. He glanced at her, wordlessly, but his expression told her everything that she needed to know.

"It's all right, Jean," Charles murmured, even as his face blurred through her tears. Swiping roughly at her eyes, Jean shook her head.

"I just can't talk to him right now. I need to get out."

"Understandable." Charles nodded.

"Come with me?" The question slipped out almost before Jean realized that she was going to ask. Charles looked taken aback for a moment and Jean sniffed. "Please?"

Whether it was her added begging or Charles would have capitulated on his own was unclear, but he smiled and nodded. "Of course, if you'd like."

Jean walked into the garage first, running one finger over the workbench out of habit. At first she walked towards the two door black sports car that she'd bought herself in her junior year of college, but a soft cough brought her up short. Face flaming with embarrassment, she spun around, opening her mouth to apologize.

"Shall we take the van?" Charles asked, kindly. His tone brought tears back to her eyes and she nodded. He wheeled himself to the passenger side easily and Jean unlatched the locks with barely a thought. With the ease of long practice, Charles pulled himself into the seat, arranging his legs comfortably while Jean pulled open the side door. Narrowing her eyes at the wheelchair, she folded it neatly and lifted it into the door with her mind. The door slid shut and Jean walked around to climb into the driver's seat.

Charles fiddled with the air, giving her a moment to collect herself as she adjusted the mirror and blotted a few additional escaped tears. Hitting the garage remote control, Jean shifted the van into drive and pulled the car into the front loop. The tires crunched loudly on the gravel and Jean glanced up reflexively towards her room. The blinds still hung haphazardly open, but she could see well enough to know that no one was looking down at her.

"I'm sure he wants to give you some space," Charles murmured, earning a sharp look from Jean. He managed a wry smile. "I am not eavesdropping on purpose, Jean. I would not do you that discourtesy."

_Sorry._ Jean managed, her throat too constricted to speak.

_Don't apologize, my dear. I have been where you are many times before._ The sadness threaded through the Professor's thought caught Jean by surprise and she drew in a sharp breath.

_Why didn't it work?_ She kept her eyes firmly on the road, unwilling to even glance to her right after she asked. Her fingers shook and she gripped the wheel tightly to stop them.

For a long moment, Charles remained silent, even in his mind. "I'm sorry," Jean whispered. "It's none of my business."

"That's hardly true, is it?" Charles answered finally, with a pained sigh. _Children from a broken home…_

Jean glanced at him quickly, noting that he looked tired, before turning her attention back to the road. "Did you stop loving him?"

"No." The answer came almost immediately, fervent in its quiet denial.

"Oh." Jean bit her lip. "Did he stop loving you?"

Charles sighed again, then shook his head. "I can't do this…"

Mortified, Jean started to apologize, but stopped when Charles leaned forward to rummage through the glove compartment. "Not without a cigarette. Please don't judge me." He pulled his hand out with a crumpled pack of Marlboros. He tapped the pack against his hand, extracting one cigarette and reaching for the lighter. "Erik got me started on the habit years ago, much to my own dismay. I rarely give into the urge, but sometimes…"

Jean managed a weak smile. "You just have to. Me, too." She held out her hand and after a brief hesitation, Charles passed the lit cigarette into her fingers. Holding it delicately, Jean brought it to her lips and inhaled lightly. "It's a bad habit for a teacher, though," she observed as she exhaled a plume of smoke

"And a doctor," Charles chided back earning a more genuine smile.

"True."

They drove for a few moments longer in silence. "He did not stop loving me," Charles finally answered. "He just stopped believing in me. And I in him, I suppose."

"John Lennon was wrong," Jean muttered quietly. Charles glanced at her quizzically but laughed softly when she sent a few measures of the song into his mind.

"Perhaps it was Paul McCartney." Leaning forward, Charles gestured. "Turn here if you will."

Surprised, but not really caring where they went, Jean obeyed. Flipping on the blinker, she guided the van into a U-turn. The Professor showed her map in her mind and Jean turned down a decrepit looking street that bore more graffiti than road signs. A memory tugged at Jean's mind and she recognized their destination without any help from Charles' mental map.

Silently, Jean pulled the van into one of the abandoned handicap parking spaces and killed the ignition. "I haven't been here in years."

_Nor I._ Charles thought, though he didn't turn away from the window. They both stared at the building, oddly shaped by design but falling apart from lack of maintenance. A door at the corner, rather than on the side, still bore an open sign, although the U and G of the nameplate had long ago since vanished. _Not since he left._ Aloud, he said, "They've built a ramp access."

Charles opened the door, turning to lean outside and Jean hurriedly exited the van. She reached the side and pushed open the door, glancing around quickly to make sure no one could see her extract the wheelchair without actually touching it. When Charles was ready, they crossed the street together. Jean held open the door, squinting to see inside the dim room.

The red brick walls had been plastered over and crude scenes that Jean supposed were intended to represent Italian vistas had been painted on the walls. The wood floor looked the same, though. In fact, it looked so similar that Jean briefly wondered if anyone had bothered to clean it in the last fifteen years. The floors made her glad that the restaurant still depended on candles for atmosphere.

Charles wheeled to the host's station and Jean felt a jolt of recognition when she saw the man standing there. He smiled at them blankly and Jean hid a smile. He only seemed shorter because she'd grown taller, but he was definitely more rotund. What little hair he still had grew in gray now and his eyes were hidden behind a pair of bifocals. "Two tonight?"

"Yes," Jean answered when Charles didn't and the host nodded politely before leading them to a small table against the far wall and under a scene that Jean suspected represented Venice. She sat down and waited quietly while the host removed a chair so that Charles could fit at the table. Studying her fingernails, Jean pondered the benefits of a manicure as she desperately tried to block out the waves of nostalgia and regret coming off of Charles.

_I know Erik brought you here once._

Yes.

He hated this place.

Yes. Jean picked up a packet of sugar and spun it in her fingers. "You liked it."

"He told you?" Charles sounded surprised, looking at her closely for the first time all evening.

"He didn't have to," Jean admitted.

"We found this place one evening by accident." Charles finally broke the silence after a waiter had brought them two waters and several menus. "We were looking for a different restaurant, but we never did manage to locate it. We finally ate here in desperation." Charles' lips twitched in remembered amusement. "I don't know that they managed to get anything right, but their Alfredo sauce," he closed his eyes. "It was wickedly good."

The adjective surprises Jean and she stopped twirling the sugar packet to study him. With his eyes closed and his head tilted back slightly, he looked younger, the way she remembered him from her youth. _Do I want to know why you look so smug?_

Charles didn't open his eyes, but his lips turned up in a slow and sensuously amused smile. _No._

"He didn't talk about any of that," Jean murmured, flipping open the menu to stare at it. The prices looked more impressive, but the food did not.

"What did you talk about?"

_Blowjobs._ The thought escaped before Jean could stop it and she blushed scarlet even as the Professor choked on his water. For one half-frantic moment Jean thought she'd killed him even as she forced herself to try and remember how, exactly, to give the Heimlich maneuver.

Their waiter looked up in alarm and started over before Charles could wave him off. "I'm fine, just went down the wrong pipe."

Jean started giggling helplessly. _Not like **that**! More like the birds and the bees, I think. I'm pretty sure he took exception to the slang word 'sucks.'_

Charles managed a smile, although he still cleared his throat. "Erik never did care for base language."

"Are you ready to order?" The waiter hovered nearby, clearly not willing to risk losing an order to an untimely choking death.

Charles looked at her expectantly. "Ladies first."

_Jean studied her menu for a minute, and then she looked over the top of it at Dr. Lensherr, remembering what he'd said. "Is there anything not bad here?"_

His lips twitched, but he set down his menu and regarded her seriously. "It wouldn't be fair if I told you. Consider this your punishment for coming along uninvited."

"Fine. I'll just get whatever you get."

"Oh, no. Ladies order first," he replied, arching an eyebrow.

The memory hit her hard and unexpectedly. Across from her, she saw the Professor pale slightly and Jean cleared her throat. "Chicken Marsala, please, and a glass of the Burgundy."

"Fettuccine Alfredo," Charles murmured. "And a glass of Pinot Grigio."

Silence filled the space between them after the waiter left and Jean returned her attention to the now frazzled sugar packet. A tentative brush of her mind against Charles' revealed that he'd put up shields and she sighed. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to show you that."

"I know." Charles answered quietly. "In some ways, I think his leaving was harder on you than it was on me. You were just a child and it was unfair of either of us to expect you to understand…" He trailed off, seemingly at a loss for words.

"I understood more than you thought," Jean managed, her voice tight. "You ended up on opposite sides of an ideological divide. Neither of you could bend."

"Jean." Charles sounded disappointed in her and Jean raised her head, her chin jutting out.

"You don't know that he was wrong about what will happen. Every year, someone introduces legislation that would hurt us, do us harm. Every night on the news there's stories about the mutant menace."

"I know." Charles met her eyes calmly. _That's why I've asked Scott to take leadership of the team._

The mental tone of his voice echoed through her head, resolute and final. "He told me."

"And?"

"I'm still going to medical school." Jean dropped the sugar packet on the table, shoving it aside, and looked into her mentor's eyes.

"Is that why…?" The Professor's question cut off as the waiter came back to them with a basket of bread.

Jean shrugged. "He wants me to stay and help. He says that he needs me and can't do it alone."

A strange expression flickered in Charles' eyes, but he shook his head. "Scott doubts himself more than he should."

"Yes," Jean agreed, picking up a roll that she didn't really want. "I told him that. And I told him that I've worked too hard to give up everything. "

"You shouldn't." Charles also took a roll, though he seemed no more eager to eat it than Jean did.

_Why didn't you ask me?_ Jean watched him closely, almost unbelieving of her own daring.

_Would you have said yes?_

I don't know. No. Maybe.

I couldn't risk you giving up your dream for mine. Charles smiled at her sadly. _Though I will always hope you come home._

"Scott thinks I'm being selfish," Jean said abruptly. "Do you?"

Charles looked genuinely shocked. "He said that?" For the first time in a long time, he sounded angry and Jean hastily shook her head.

"No."

_Jean…_

Don't rebuke me. I didn't read his thoughts on purpose. He's always in my head now. The longer we are… intimate… the more he's there.

Charles sighed and looked away. "Of course you didn't do it on purpose."

A sudden overwhelming fear choked Jean slightly. _Does it get easier when you're apart? Or will it feel like a part of me is missing?_

It's hard a first. Charles answered after a moment. "It feels a little like your ears are stopped up. It's not noise as much as it is the lack of it."

"I love him."

"He knows."

"Is it enough?" Jean asked, eyes filling with tears again. "Or will it fade when I'm gone?"

Charles shook his head. _I don't know._

Lie to me, then, and tell me that everything will be all right. Tell me that all we need is love. Tell me that I'm doing the right thing.

Oh, Jean. Charles reached over the table and took her hand in his, but he kept silent. They broke apart when the waiter came over to set down their food.

"Do you need anything else?"

"Not right now, thank you," Charles answered for them both after Jean shook her head mutely.

"Let me know if you do." The waiter moved away, towards the back where one of the kitchen workers lingered and promptly started a hushed conversation. Charles picked up his fork and poked at the noodles weakly.

Jean willed her eyes to stop tearing and resolutely picked up her fork and knife. Cutting the chicken more violently than necessary felt good, but after a moment her irritation wilted. "I can see why Scott thinks I'm selfish."

"You can?" Charles asked, startled.

"Yes. You're taking on more students every day. I know that Ororo and Hank have been recruiting. Scott said that you expect up to 30 students this year."

"Jean…"

"I have my teaching certificate." Jean cut him off. "You don't have enough teachers."

"Jean."

"I'll be gone for four years. And then for my residency."

"Jean." Charles called her name sternly and Jean looked up in surprise. "We will still be here when you come home."

"But…"

"No buts." Charles said firmly. _We work to make sure mutants have opportunities, not to take them away. We are **all** very proud of you and want you to succeed. Scott is proud of you._

"I know." Jean sighed. "But pride and frustration are not mutually exclusive emotions."

"True," Charles' lips quirked into a smile. "How do you feel about what he's doing?"

The question startled Jean out of her reverie. "I think Scott will make a fantastic team leader. I know he's a fantastic teacher."

"Do you think he's making the wrong decision?"

Jean opened her mouth to object, but Charles hushed her with a thought. _He was accepted into graduate schools as well, you know._

_That's not fair._ Jean slapped her fork down. _I can't decide what's best for him._

No. Charles agreed. _No more than he can decide what's right for you. He **knows** that, Jean. That's why he didn't tell you that he thought you were selfish. He doesn't think that, although he may be upset that you're leaving and a little frightened of the tasks he's chosen to undertake._

"I'm not leaving him," Jean finally replied. She pushed her plate away. "I just… don't want what he wants right now."

"You're a lot like Erik." Charles smiled. "He was always certain of himself. It's a confidence that I see in you, too. It gave him strength to get through unbelievably difficult times. Don't let anyone make you doubt yourself, my dear."

Jean's answering smile tuned tremulous. "I miss him."

"So do I."

The waiter approached to collect their empty plates. "Can I bring you anything else?"

"Yes, please." Jean answered. "I'd like an order of fettuccine Alfredo to go, please."

"That's nice of you," Charles murmured. "Erik used to bring dinner home to me after a fight as well. It was his version of an olive branch."

"I remember." Jean answered, her throat tight. _I guess history repeats itself._

Let's hope not. Charles smiled at her sadly and reached over to pat her hand. _I have faith that you and Scott will work things out._

Jean managed to smile back, but she shielded as tightly as she knew how when she thought, _"I always thought you would, too."_


End file.
